Jin Yong


Louis Cha Leung-yung , better known by his pen name Jin Yong, was a Hong Kong wuxia novelist and co-founder of Ming Pao. Cha authored 15 novels between 1955 and 1972 and became one of the most popular Chinese writers of all time, with over 100 million copies sold globally—excluding widespread pirated editions. Cha's novels, which have been adapted into numerous TV dramas, films, and video games, are esteemed for their literary quality and universal appeal, resonating with both scholarly and popular audiences.

Early life

Born on 10 March 1924, in Haining, Zhejiang in Republican China, Cha was named Zha Liangyong and is the second of seven children. He hailed from the scholarly Zha clan of Haining, whose members included notable literati of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties such as Zha Jizuo, Zha Shenxing and Zha Siting. His grandfather, Zha Wenqing, obtained the position of a tong jinshi chushen in the imperial examination during the Qing dynasty. His father, Zha Shuqing, was arrested and executed by the Communist government for allegedly being a counterrevolutionary during the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries in the early 1950s. Zha Shuqing was later posthumously declared innocent in the 1980s.
Zha Shuqing used to read him excerpts from the wuxia Huangjiang Nüxia by Gu Mingdao every day, which aroused Cha's strong interest in the genre. Later, Cha took the initiative to read other works like Water Margin and The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, which laid the foundation of his future as a wuxia novelist.
In 1937, Cha studied at Jiaxing No. 1 Middle School. In 1938, the Japanese army invaded Zhejiang, and the Jiaxing Middle School had to move hundreds of miles south to Lishui city in order to survive. Cha, as one of the students, only carried a quilt and a change of clothes, and the students had to trek on foot for 60 to 70 miles a day.
Cha was later expelled in 1941 after he wrote an article called "Alice's Adventures" which satirized the training director sent by the Kuomintang for being vicious towards the students. Cha later reflected on this period as one of the most significant crises in his life. The expulsion not only deprived him of the opportunity to pursue his studies but he suddenly faced the issue of finding food and accommodation. Fortunately, with assistance from the principal, Zhang Yintong, Cha resumed his high school education at Quzhou No. 1 Secondary School and graduated in 1943.

Education

Cha was admitted to the Department of Foreign Languages at the Central University of Political Affairs in Chongqing. Cha later dropped out of the school. He took the entrance exam and gained admission to the Faculty of Law at Soochow University, where he majored in international law with the intention of pursuing a career in the foreign service.
In 2005, Cha applied at the University of Cambridge for a doctorate in Asian Studies, which he obtained in 2010. In 2009, Cha enrolled in another doctoral program in Chinese literature at Peking University but never graduated.

Career

Cha was a journalist. To help support his studies, he began work in 1947 as a journalist and translator for the Ta Kung Pao newspaper in Shanghai. He moved to Hong Kong in 1948 to work for the paper's office in the city. When Cha was transferred to New Evening Post as Deputy Editor, he met Chen Wentong, who wrote his first wuxia novel under the pseudonym "Liang Yusheng" in 1953. Chen and Cha became good friends and it was under the former's influence that Cha began work on his first serialised martial arts novel, The Book and the Sword, in 1955. In 1957, while still working on wuxia serialisations, he quit his previous job and worked as a scenarist-director and scriptwriter at Great Wall Movie Enterprises Ltd and Phoenix Film Company.
In 1959, Cha co-founded the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao with his high school classmate Shen Baoxin. Cha served as its editor-in-chief for years, writing both serialised novels and editorials, amounting to some 10,000 Chinese characters per day. His novels also earned him a large readership. Cha completed his last wuxia novel in 1972, after which he officially retired from writing novels, and spent the remaining years of that decade editing and revising his literary works instead. The first complete definitive edition of his works appeared in 1979. In 1980, Cha wrote a postscript to Wu Gongzao's tai chi classic Wujia Taijiquan, where he described influences from as far back as Laozi and Zhuang Zhou on contemporary Chinese martial arts.
By then, Cha's wuxia novels had gained great popularity in Chinese-speaking areas. All of his novels have since been adapted into films, TV shows and radio dramas in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. The important characters in his novels are so well known to the public that they can be alluded to with ease in all three regions.
In the late 1970s, Cha was involved in Hong Kong politics. After Deng Xiaoping, a Jin Yong fan, came to power and initiated the reform and opening-up process, Cha became the first non-Communist Hong Konger to meet with Deng. He was a member of the Hong Kong Basic Law drafting committee but resigned in protest after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. He was also part of the Preparatory Committee set up in 1996 by the Chinese government to monitor the 1997 transfer of sovereignty.
In 1993, Cha prepared for retirement from editorial work and sold all his shares in Ming Pao.
The asteroid 10930 Jinyong has been named after him.

Personal life

Cha's parents were Zha Shuqing and Xu Lu. He had four brothers and two sisters, and was the second oldest among the seven of them. His brothers were Zha Liangjian, Zha Lianghao, Zha Liangdong and Zha Liangyu. His sisters were Zha Liangxiu and Zha Liangxuan. His cousin was educator and philanthropist Cha Liang-chao.
Cha married three times. His first wife was Du Zhifen, whom he married in 1948 but divorced later. In 1953, he married his second wife, Zhu Mei, a newspaper journalist. They had two sons and two daughters: Zha Chuanxia, Zha Chuanti, Zha Chuanshi and Zha Chuanne. Cha divorced Zhu in 1976 and married his third wife, Lin Leyi, who was 29 years his junior and 16 years old when they first met. In 1976, his son Zha Chuanxia, then 19 years old, committed suicide after a quarrel with his girlfriend while studying at Columbia University.

Death

On 30 October 2018, Cha died after a long illness at the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, aged 94.
His funeral service was held privately at Hong Kong Funeral Home in Quarry Bay on 13 November 2018 with his family and friends, with well known figures including writers Ni Kuang, Chua Lam, Chip Tsao, Benny Lee, producer Zhang Jizhong, actor Huang Xiaoming, former President of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Poon Chung-kwong, image designer Tina Liu, politicians Tung Chee-hwa and Edward Leong, and founder of Alibaba Group Jack Ma among them in attendance.
At noon, his coffin was moved to Po Lin Monastery at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, where he was cremated and his ashes was interred at the Hoi Wui Tower's columbarium.

Decorations and conferments

In addition to his wuxia novels, Cha also wrote many non-fiction works on Chinese history. For his achievements, he received many honours.
Cha was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by the British government in 1981. He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
Cha was also an honorary professor at Peking University, Zhejiang University, Nankai University, Soochow University, Huaqiao University, National Tsing Hua University, Hong Kong University, the University of British Columbia, and Sichuan University. Cha was an honorary doctor at National Chengchi University, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Open University of Hong Kong, the University of British Columbia, Soka University and the University of Cambridge. He was also an honorary fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford and Robinson College, Cambridge, and a Waynflete Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
When receiving his honorary doctorate at the University of Cambridge in 2004, Cha expressed his wish to be a full-time student at Cambridge for four years to attain a non-honorary doctorate. In July 2010, Cha earned his Doctor of Philosophy in oriental studies at St John's College, Cambridge with a thesis on imperial succession in the early Tang dynasty.

Works

Cha wrote a total of 16 fictional works, of which only one is a non-wuxia autobiographical short story. His wuxia works are made up of a novella, 2 standalone novels, 11 interconnected novels of varying lengths, and a novelette. Most of his novels were first published in daily instalments in newspapers, then later in 3 authorised book editions each with various changes to the plots and the characters. There are 4 editions of his novels:
  1. Serialised newspaper/magazine version
  2. Old edition/1st edition
  3. Revised edition/2nd edition
  4. New Revised edition/3rd edition/Century edition
The works are:

Standalone

Series

Connections between the works

All of Jin Yong's novels, except White Horse Neighs in the Western Wind and Ode to Gallantry are connected, albeit weakly.
Aqing, the protagonist of the novelette "Sword of the Yue Maiden", is the ancestor of Han Xiaoying from The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils is a prequel; the Northern Beggar of the Five Greats, Hong Qigong succeeds Qiao Feng as the new chief of the Beggars' Gang in The Legend of the Condor Heroes and Duan Yu is the ancestor of the historical character Duan Zhixing who later becomes Reverend Yideng, another member of the Five Greats. The Legend of the Condor Heroes, The Return of the Condor Heroes and The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber make up the Condor Trilogy and should be read in that order. Dugu Qiubai's Heavy Iron Sword is used by Yang Guo and broken down to create the Heaven-Reliant Sword and the Dragon-Slaying Saber. Guo Xiang inherits the Heaven-Reliant Sword and passes it to her successors in the Emei School. Linghu Chong from The Smiling, Proud Wanderer learns Dugu Qiubai's Nine Swords of Dugu from Feng Qingyang, a reclusive Mount Hua School swordsman. Some characters and schools from The Smiling, Proud Wanderer are mentioned in Sword Stained with Royal Blood.
In a very brief inner monologue in The Deer and the Cauldron, Chengguan, a knowledgeable but naïve Shaolin monk, ponders two great swordsmen in the past who performed swordplay without following any defined stances: Dugu Qiubai and Linghu Chong. A few major characters from Sword Stained with Royal Blood also appear as minor characters. Wu Liuqi, a historical character from The Deer and the Cauldron, is mentioned in the third edition of A Deadly Secret as the martial arts master of Mei Niansheng.
Numerous characters from The Book and the Sword appear in The Young Flying Fox, including Chen Jialuo. Hu Yidao, Miao Renfeng, Tian Guinong and the Feng family in The Young Flying Fox are the fictional descendants of the four bodyguards of Li Zicheng, who appears in the Sword Stained with Royal Blood and The Deer and the Cauldron. The Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is the sequel to The Young Flying Fox.